Standard Chartered’s micro finance goes east and west

Monday, 16 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Standard Chartered will extend its micro finance and financial literacy sustainability initiative to 75 recipients in Mannar and Batticaloa, with a further investment of $ 50,000.

In 2012, Standard Chartered envisaged a plan to bring financial literacy and micro financing schemes to the men and women affected by the civil war so that they may once more rebuild their lives and enterprise and function as contributors within the economy, partnering the Government’s Uthuru Wasanthaya program. Approximately 150 recipients in Jaffna have had access to facilities under this initiative with the bank’s initial investment of $ 10,000. Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered, who first devised the scheme and has travelled to Jaffna to meet with recipients, speaking of the program said: “This is an entirely community sustainability focused initiative in that the bank reinvests the monies earned by way of loan and interest payments back in the communities. Standard Chartered simply wished to provide proper financial counselling and access to seed capital, so that entrepreneurs could realise their goals and ambitions. We are extremely impressed with the diligence and enterprise which has been demonstrated and thus we have now devised extensions of the scheme to other areas.” Standard Chartered is committed to the creation of wealth across Asia, Africa and the Middle East and in furtherance of this aim has conducted a series of sessions on financial literacy, entrepreneurship and best business practice for those embarking on business ventures, to improve livelihoods and provide platforms from which small scale enterprise can enter the mainstream of developmental activities.

The micro financing program with the investment of $ 60,000 is a reiteration of the bank’s commitment to building capacity on basic business skills, financial capabilities and providing access to business networks, in the North and East of the island, with an especial focus on women widowed by the civil war. Standard Chartered’s micro financing and financial literacy programs, which will also be extended to include Anuradhapura, are in furtherance of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed with the Youth Business Sri Lanka (YBSL), a project of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC). The micro-financing facilities were made possible for Standard Chartered, which has no presence in the peninsula, via the assistance of Hatton National Bank, which has efficiently disbursed the loans to the recipients on the bank’s behalf.